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Symbian

No real surprise that F-Secure’s fourth quarter threat report further accentuated the all-but-definite-reality that there is a direct correlation between a platform’s market share and the volume of threats targeting it.

Yes. You read that headline correctly. F-Secure is talking about the beleaguered and nearly defunct Symbian operating system, upon which Nokia halted nearly all development in February before announcing that it had been put in maintenance mode in September. Despite a nearly 63 percent drop in shipments of Symbian devices in the second quarter of this year and its modest 4.4 percent share of the global smartphone market, Symbian was the new home for 21 variants of malware in Q3, up 17 percent from Q2.

From ZDNet (Dancho Danchev)
Earlier this month, a mobile malware known as Sexy View or Sexy Space slipped through Symbian’s mobile code signing procedure, allowing it to act as a legitimate application with access to device critical functions such as access to the mobile network, and numerous other functions of the handset.
Upon notification, the Symbian Foundation quickly revoked the certificate used by the bogus Chinese company XinZhongLi TianJin Co. Ltd, however, due to the fact the revocation check is turned off by default, the effect of the revocation remains questionable. What are the chances that future malware authors could bypass the code signing procedure again? Read the full story [zdnet.com]

From The H Security
Symbian, found in many mobile phones, especially those from Nokia, is one of the most widely used mobile operating systems and has now been in use for more than ten years. It continues to be viewed as a very secure operating system, with special security functions and a certification system which help to ensure that only signed code can run with high privileges. Anti-virus vendors occasionally report new malware capable of running on the Symbian platform, but so far none have managed to spread widely. Read the full story [The H Security].

Malware that attacks mobile phones and other handheld devices has been the Next Big Threat for most of the last decade. And much like the Year of PKI, it’s never really materialized. Security experts have postulated that this is mainly because there’s not enough valuable data on these devices to attract the money-motivated attackers. But a new paper, “Understanding the Spreading Patterns of Mobile Phone Viruses,” from a group of scientists shows that the barriers are more likely market saturation and geography.

Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab (our corporate sponsor) are warning about a new potentially unwanted program [viruslist.com] targeting Symbian-based smart phones.
The program, called iPornPlayer (screenshot at right), promises sexually-explicit content on handsets but there’s a hefty price attached because it calls international premium rate numbers.
Read the full story [viruslist.com]